


Pyre

by baeberiibungh



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Burning, Gen, Pre-Series, The Hale Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 03:19:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11477532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeberiibungh/pseuds/baeberiibungh
Summary: Peter burned and he remembers each excruciating second of it…





	Pyre

The tunnels were a safeguard, a plan B, a security. When the fire started burning, pushing choking black smoke inwards, everyone had run down to the corner of the dining room, which had the trap door into the tunnels. The werewolves were dizzy from the pervading smell of the wolfsbane and the humans were gasping from the curling purple vervain, sugar bright and pinpricking the skin. Talia’s eyes kept flaring up, Alpha red and then normal human shade as she sought to get her panic under control. It was her responsibility to get everyone to safety, to keep everyone safe. Peter is holding one of the smaller children on his hip, his tee pulled up to cover up his nose as he does the same to the child. 

The heartbeats are a flurry of sounds, jacked up and beating in a jangle of discordant sounds. Fear is clear on their face as they contemplate what if the door doesn’t open. The members are the first priority of course, but they are leaving behind so much, as sacrifice to appease the fire gods maybe, segments of their history to be burned into ashes and so much of their memories. They are not just losing all of that, they are already losing it all, and then the door opens and a blessed sigh wavers out from the group as the humans are let through first to dismantle the mountain ash barriers, if any more. Talia leaves last. Rage and sadness on her face, as her home burns around her for no reason.

The children are scared, confused and crying, hugging onto their parents or their relative, eyes wide and faces carrying such a look of fear that Peter wants to smash the walls surrounding him, that’s how they anger them. Children are not to be that scared in their own homes, in the arms of their own parents, _they shouldn’t_.The fire eats everything hungrily, spreading with glee, unconcerned about what it destroys, it just burns and pushed the poison laden air towards the basement, the only place the fire is yet to rage fully. The steps are loud as they nearly run through the tunnels, labyrinth like in structure but everyone knows the way out by heart, the weird endings more to confuse the pursuers rather than to stop their progress.

They stumble into the large room, just two doors away from the outside, from, cover, from safety so they take a breather, take count, tally the numbers, scent each other to pacify their racing hearts that yes, all came, that yes, the family still remains safe. The danger is not over yet, far from it, but they can jostle the children more securely, wrap the clothes around faces more tightly and then they move again. Nervous smiles are breaking out now. They are almost out. They are almost in the open. The first door opens and then, suddenly, an invisible barrier. The werewolves snarl at that. Freedom is so near so and yet they are trapped. Children slide down their parents hold as they start banging at the barrier. What to do, everyone rumbles, what to do?

The only humans are Peter’s very much pregnant wife and three of the children. The children are too small to do anything and Elaine, fragile and weak Elaine, is not in a position to do much. The wolfsbane had been spread into the ground making a large barrier from the middle of the corridor to the door. Peter turns Elaine to himself and soothes her, her frightened face another nail in his heart. One of her hand is perpetually on her stomach, seeking to save her unborn from any harm. Peter kisses her forehead and tells her to go ahead and open the door. To walk out with the children and hide in the nearby caves immediately. Their enemies may or may not be waiting this instant outside the door after all. 

Elaine tries to sweep some of the wolfsbane to the side with her bare feet but there is simply so much of it, almost a thick layer of it, that it does not help much. She lunges for the door and gives a loud choke as she looks back in fear as she seems unable to open the door. Something is blocking the door from the other side and it does not open. Elaine screams as she pulls at it but she cannot do it. She turns back now, the room so much darker with all the smoke and the sound of rough coughing of a dozen throats filling it and tries to sweep the wolfsbane away. They slip through her finger like fine sand and she goes to her knees to bodily push aside some more. But to no avail. The werewolves can perhaps come just one more step, but no more. 

Elaine wheezes as the smoke fills in more into the room and yet she does not stop trying to push the wolfsbane away. It sticks to her sweaty skin, fills her lungs as she inhales too close to it and the people around her are panicking. Shouting and roaring and beating at the barrier, but it does not help. Peter is holding Sam close to him, pushing his face into his chest as he tries to cajole Elaine some more. Suddenly she is choking, hands wrapped around her neck. Can’t get at the air that is not there and Peter roars, screams for his mate and child and his family around him is collapsing into trembling heaps. The shouts are weaker now, the fire having sent the vervaine and wolfsbane laced smoke on their way first and he can hear the fire crackle at the bend.

Then the fire comes and the shouts go loud again. The worst are those of the children, shrill and pitiful. Talia gives a loud roar enough to shake the room and then nothing and Peter can feel pack link to his alpha give away. Sam too is no longer moving in his arms. Peter claws at the barrier to get to Elaine, to bring her to safety, but, and here Peter stills, there is no heartbeat. Form either of them. His wife had passed away scant meters from him and he didn’t even notice. Stiles he crawls and claws till he has one claw hooked into Elaine’s big toe. He pulls, with all his might as the smell of burning flesh start to overpower him. Peter pulls Elaine to his arms and kisses her one last time.

Then he starts pushing and pulling Elaine’s body through the wolfsbane till a way has cleared up. The fire burns on his back as he staggers over her to the door, which he wrenches open with a roar. His body is already on fire, his clothes melting away and mingling with his skin as he jumps out of the tunnel into the dark night, he himself burning like a torch as he tries to roll and put the fire out. The wolfsbane got embedded in his hands and face when he was trying to clear the way and they burn, like the surface of the sun is touching him. Peter screams and screams, fire expanding inside him till he is only pain and that is all he feels. _I am dying_ he thinks, repeatedly and then there is no more thought but a blessed blank. _I am dead_ he thinks last and then does not think at all for the next 6 years.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Leave your comments and kudos. I wrote this a lil diff from canon bt i guess its ok.


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